Nuclear Weapons

The writer is editor and publisher of Norway's news site, newsinenglish.no. This report, which originally appeared with the headline Peace Prize puts squeeze on Norway, is being reproduced courtesy of the news site. – The Editor

OSLO (IDN-INPS) - Nobel Peace Prize Day in Oslo dawned with clear and sunny skies on Sunday, but not everyone was celebrating. The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award this year’s Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) challenges Norwegian leaders to finally support a ban themselves, and now pressure is building on them to do so.

The Peace Prize to ICAN thrust the prize’s own home country into a difficult, even embarrassing, position. Norway, in line with its NATO allies and other nuclear powers, have refused to support or sign a UN treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons that was adopted by 122 other nations last summer. Critics called that shameful.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - When, soon after the election, President Barack Obama invited Donald Trump to the White House we didn't learn much about their conversation. But we were briefed on one thing: Obama had told Trump that North Korea would be the most pressing and difficult issue on his agenda.

How right that was. But the Americans have missed the boat. It's as simple as that. What’s done is done. While Washington has dithered and dithered through three successive presidencies, missing opportunity after opportunity, North Korea has gone from zero nuclear weapons to an arsenal of at least 20. Its test of an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile, in the early hours of November 29, is said to be capable of striking the U.S. It doesn't have a nuclear tip yet but that will come sometime in the next two or three years.

GENEVA (IDN | UNFOLD ZERO) – Amid menacing tensions between the United States and North Korea in the aftermath of Pyongyang testing a long-range missile that is potentially capable of hitting the entire mainland U.S., young academics and activists from around the world are asking world leaders to reduce the risks of nuclear weapons being deployed and to support United Nations initiatives for nuclear disarmament, including the High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament to take place in 2018.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) - Over the past year, cavalier and reckless statements from President Donald Trump about nuclear weapons and his threat to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea have heightened fears about Cold War-era policies and procedures that put the authority to launch nuclear weapons in his hands alone.

Partially in response, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for the first time since 1976, held a hearing on the “executive’s authority to use nuclear weapons.” The November 14 hearing should be just the start of a process that leads to changes that reduce the risk of nuclear miscalculation and establishes that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons.

SANTA BARBARA | USA (IDN-INPS) - The future of the world and of humanity is at the mercy of a lunatic. His name is Donald Trump, and he alone has access to the U.S. nuclear codes. Before he does something rash and irreversible with those codes, it is imperative to decode Donald, taking the necessary steps to remove this power from him.

Trump tweeted on December 16, 2016: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."

What good would a greatly strengthened and expanded nuclear capability do for the U.S.? We can already end civilization and most life on the planet with the use of our nuclear arsenal. The U.S. has nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons, with more than 1,500 of them deployed and ready for use.

SANTA BARBARA | USA (IDN-INPS) - The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been working to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life for 35 years. We were one of many nuclear disarmament organizations created in the early 1980s, in our case in 1982. Some of these organizations have endured; some have not.

We were founded on the belief that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age, that nuclear weapons must be abolished, and that the people of the world must lead their leaders to achieve these goals. As a founder of the organization, and as its president since its founding, it now seems an appropriate time to look back and reflect on the changes that have occurred over the past 35 years.

John Scales Avery is a theoretical chemist noted for his research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. Presently an Associate Professor in quantum chemistry at the University of Copenhagen,since the early 1990s, he has been an active World peace activist. During these years, he was part of a group associated with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which in 1995 received the Nobel Peace Prize. The following are excerpts from introduction to the book NUCLEAR WEAPONS: AN ABSOLUTE EVIL that can be downloaded from http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/nuclear.pdf – The Editor

COPENHAGEN (IDN) - Today, because of the possibility that U.S. President Donald Trump might initiate a nuclear war against Iran or North Korea, or even Russia, the issue of nuclear weapons is at the center of the global stage.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – NATO’s recent provocative decision to build up its military forces across Europe by sending four new multinational battalions to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland, comes at a time of great turmoil and intense questioning of global security with new forces for both good and evil straining to make their mark on the course of history.

On November 10-11, at the Vatican, Pope Francis held an international conference to follow up on the recently negotiated treaty to prohibit the possession, use, or threat of use of nuclear weapons leading to their complete elimination which was negotiated in the UN General Assembly this summer by 122 nations, although none of the nine nuclear weapons states participated.

VATICAN CITY (IDN) – When world leaders approved 'Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development', as an outcome document of the United Nations summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development two years ago, they designated it as "a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity" that "also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom".

The document, which includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets, is based on a consensus emerging from protracted discussions within the Open Working Group. It meticulously avoids words such as "a world free of nuclear weapons".